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[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Does the Japanese version of the very first SBS (in Vol. 4, right after Chapter 27) mention Usopp's age? I've heard that the Viz version skipped it?

yes! it wasn't requested in the question, which only asks about luffy, zoro, nami, and shanks, (and usopp hadn't yet joined the crew yet), but the last sentence of the answer here is:

ちなみにウソップはルフィと同じ17歳です/chinami ni usoppu wa rufi to onaji 17 sai desu -> "incidentally, usopp is 17 years old, the same as luffy."

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

actually re: saturn insulting akainu in the newest chapter, this is also something i was thinking about earlier this arc, when akainu was fighting kuma at mariejois, and as he was attempting to fend off this quite genuine threat, the celestial dragons were just sort of hanging around and whining at him about all the minor inconveniences in their privileged lives.

akainu is the most committed servant of the world government's vision. he questions no orders and has no doubts of the rightness of his cause. he will destroy an entire ship fill of civilians on the off chance that a single scholar may have snuck aboard. and what does it get him?

it gets him the very people he's defending demeaning him because they can't have lobster. there will never be any gratitude for that loyal service he's rendered, because the celestial dragons see it as nothing less than their due. and as we see in the most recent chapter, even the slightest or most unavoidable failure will get him ruthlessly insulted. at the end of the day the celestial dragons see akainu as, like all other people, fundamentally lesser, and therefore unworthy of respect.

this is the system you're slaughtering for, akainu. hope you like it.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello! This is a 1113 question! It struck me as kind of interesting that Saturn blames Akainu of all people for Robin escaping Ohara. Like, he was not the man who called for the buster call (Spandine), the admiral whose authority it was under (Sengoku), the man who deserted the marines (Saul), or the vice admiral who actually let her get away (Kuzan). The only thing we see Sakazuki do at Ohara is do seemingly exactly what the elders would have wanted him to do - mercilessly destroy an escaping ship. Why would he be responsible?

Is there any insight as to why this is in the original Japanese? What do you think of this line?

i was wondering about this as well. i think it's really interesting how completely insulting saturn is towards akainu in this line- he refers to him as akainu-me, with -me being a derogatory suffix with an effect sort of like "that damn akainu," and then ぬるい男/nurui otoko, meaning like, 'slow/stupid/useless man.'

i imagine the reason saturn is especially angry at akainu is because the five elders generally seem to approve of him. he was the government's choice for the new fleet admiral implicitly because of his brutality, whereas sengoku wanted aokiji. therefore, one can assume that his failure to kill one eight year old girl was especially disappointing to the five elders, because he's generally an extremely committed and merciless servant of the government. the word that saturn uses here to describe akainu's failure, 取りこぼした/torikoboshita, means something like 'to lose what should have been an easy win.'

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

hi quick question about chapter 1113! the official translation of one of vegapunk's lines towards the end of the chapter is "I will not apply the labels of good and evil at all, in fact [...] because I understand too little about him to begin with" when talking about whoever has killed him. do you know if the original specifically used a gendered pronoun in that line?

yes! vegapunk uses the gendered pronoun 彼/kare, 'he', in this line. you can see it's actually emphasized a bit with quotes.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

In chapter 1113 Sanji gets a kick in against Venus-juro. Right before that, Sanji say smth along the lines "If someone scores points with Bonney, it will be me". TCB translated it like "If someones rescues Bonney it will be me". What exactly is he saying there? Because the official translation sounds..... off....

i knew i was gonna get asked about this line. nah, the official translation is actually closer. so in japanese the verb is モテる/moteru, which is like, a semi-slangy term for being popular or admired, especially by the opposite sex. you might say onna ni moteru about someone the same way you'd say that guy is 'popular with the ladies' in english.

sanji says ボニーちゃんにモテるのはおれだ/bonii-chan ni moteru no wa ore da, so like, "the one who's going to be admired by/popular with bonney-chan is me!" when i read this chapter and was translating it for practice, i did this line as just "bonney-chan's favorite is gonna be me!"

basically, he wants her to think he's cool (and attractive). i see where they got the translation they used in the official, like it makes sense to me, the original term does have a vaguely romantic connotation, but i think the phrase "score points" might give the impression that he's actively trying to get somewhere with her? which is not implied in the original.

(i'll also add, this is clearly supposed to be silly. he shoves past franky to do this and then immediately gets what appears to be all his ribs broken by a giant horse on the next page. i would call this entire sequence fairly standard sanji behavior.)

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello! In chapter 589 there's a text box that the English translation translates as:

Later on the page we see the conversation the revolutionaries had when dragon brings Sabo aboard (without the context that's what they're talking about of course), and it makes me wonder what exactly "the night after the ship of the celestial dragon sailed into port at the kingdom of Goa" means. Does it mean the night of the next day (meaning dragon probably had enough time to sail over) or the night of that same day (meaning dragon??? teleported??) (or that Zoro's dojo and Dawn island are a lot closer together then previously assumed??)?

Anyways I was wondering if the original Japanese sheds any light on this?

It's not an important question at all but I've been thinking about it way too much so I figured I'd ask lol. Thank you!

the japanese does clarify that it's the same day! it says 日の夜/hi no yoru, so literally 'the night OF the day (when the celestial dragon sailed into goa).' so yeah, presumably they're just less than a day's sailing apart.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

in chapter 1107 (pages 15-16) when Saturn & the Blackbeard captains discuss Teach being “special” does their wording specifically refer to a genetic lineage or something else? also wondering if there's any additional context around Van Augur's claim that they're after “the world”

yes! saturn expresses surprise that devon would defer to anyone, and devon says in explanation that teach is 特別/tokubetsu (special/extraordinary/exceptional).

saturn's response to that is 血筋もな/chisuji mo na, and chisuji does mean literally 'bloodline'- it can also be translated as like 'lineage/descent'. it is indeed a genetic/biological term (so he doesn't appear to be referring to a metaphorical 'lineage'). you can see the kanji for 'blood', 血/chi, is part of the word. the mo means is like 'as well/in addition.' so saturn's response is like "his bloodline (is special/extraordinary), as well."

there's nothing i can add about van augur's line about the world, though; it's quite literally just the one word, 世界/sekai, 'world.'

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello. I missed the raws of ch 1113 and I was wondering what were the exact words Vegapunk uses when he declares their world is sinking in the last panel.

I'm curious how literal those words are, and if there's a more metaphorical feeling behind them regarding the decline of their world.

Thank you! ❤️

it seems to be quite straightforward and literal! the line is この世界は海に沈む/kono sekai wa umi ni shizumu. kono sekai = this world; umi ni = in the ocean; shizumu = will sink.

it is interesting to me that the verb shizumu is conjugated here with the simple present/future tense, which means it's saying something that will happen, not something that has already started happening. if you wanted to say "this world is sinking into the ocean," for instance, you'd probably say shizundeiru instead.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello. I’m an English reader of One Piece, and confidently know *nothing* about the Japanese language (atleast how to read it). I own all 4 box sets that are currently officially available in English. I was wondering, considering your expertise, is the VIZ translation good (in terms of how reliable it is in accuracy)? Does it convey what it needs to? If not, do you think any scans you’ve read are better compared to the official? Curious what you think as a translator. Thanks!

i think that these days the viz translation is basically fine. it conveys what it needs to. often there's little quibbles i have with it, like little differences in how i might personally have phrased things, but i certainly don't think i could do better at translating whole chapters of manga on a week-to-week basis.

my new chapter reading process now that i'm properly caught up again starts with reading the raws in japanese, and then i skim both the unofficial scans from tcb and the official release from viz when they each come out to see what choices they made. doing this, i do see more mistakes in the unofficial scans than in the official viz translation. and that makes sense! the people who do the official viz translation are professionals who are being paid for their work and they have more time to do it.

like, just for one low-stakes recent example i noticed, in chapter 1112, the unofficial scans (left) messed up this panel by attributing both of the lines on the left to vegapunk, when in fact the second one should be spoken by pythagoras (something made clear in japanese by his distinctively polite speech pattern), a mistake which was corrected in the official (right).

and i'm not saying this to insult the scanlators, by any means! it's something i've wanted to get into myself, and they provide a really cool and valuable service largely for free as volunteers. i love scanlators. but if you are wanting the most accurate experience of the current manga as an english-speaker, the official is probably still your best bet.

however, from what i've seen (bearing in mind that my actual experience with the official translation is pretty limited, i mostly only look at it when people ask me questions or i have a specific curiosity) i do think the official translation has a lot more problems in the older arcs, roughly from east blue through, like, skypiea?

i've seen or been asked about a pretty substantial number of mistranslated lines and questionable choices from that stretch of the manga. for just one example, there's this one from drum i posted about a couple months ago, where a line that's quite thematically important to the series as a whole got cut up because of the translation's former unwillingness to use the word 'god' (also very visible and annoying in skypiea).

the anime for those arcs does use, from what i've seen, a better translation than the official manga. however, i personally don't know of any better manga retranslations of the early arcs (it's something i've actually considered trying to attempt myself, if i ever have the time for a project of that scale). if any of you have any to recommend, please let me know!

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hi! You have a great knowledge of Japanese, so I would like to ask a question not related to One Piece. It's about the word わかっている . When is it used in m/a? I know it expresses irritation and impatience. That is, if one character uses it (no matter if they are calm or not) we can assume that they are irritated by their interlocutor, otherwise they would use わかった or わかりました or even わかっています, wouldn't they? I will be grateful, if you find a time to answer.

this is an interesting question!! it mostly comes down to the difference between the simple past tense (~ta form) and the ongoing present tense form (~teiru form). for those who can't tell exactly what's being asked here, the asker is asking about different forms of the verb wakaru (to understand/to know).

わかっている/wakatteiru is the ongoing present tense form of the verb, while わかった/wakatta is the simple past tense. わかっています/wakatteimasu and わかりました/wakarimashita are just the same terms but in polite form instead- there isn't a difference in meaning, just in the level of politeness implied. so to the best of my knowledge, the distinction between wakatta and wakatteiru can be understood roughly as the difference between 'understood' and 'i already knew that.'

wakatta is most often used as a straightforward confirmation that you understand what you've just been told. sort of like the english 'got it.' the simple past tense indicates a singular action rather than something ongoing.

meanwhile, wakatteiru, as the ongoing present tense form, says that i 'have been and still am' doing this thing (in this case, 'knowing/understanding'). so if you say wakatteiru, you're sort of saying that you already knew what you've just been told. i wouldn't say that this necessarily implies irritation or impatience, but it definitely can in a lot of circumstances. at least, that's my understanding!

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

//ch1112

in York's talk with Mars, she says something that the unofficial translation put as "we don't wanna rack up any more sins. our relationship is already troubled enough." what do you think she's referring to?? what does she say in the original?

[chapter 1112 spoilers!]

so as i understand it, she's basically saying that the actions of the other vegapunks risk endangering her own relationship with the five elder stars.

the word she uses that's translated by the unofficial scans as 'sin' is 罪/tsumi, which can also mean 'crime' (it's one of the central words of enies lobby, which is why a lot of translations of that arc use 'sin' and 'crime' interchangeably) and then the verb is the passive form of 重ねる/kasaneru, meaning 'to pile up.' so the first half of this phrase is basically "if these crimes are allowed to keep piling up..."

and then the second half is あんたらと付き合い辛くなる/antara to tsukiaidzurakunaru. antara to is like 'relating to you (plural)', and then tsukiaidzurakunaru is a way of saying like 'fed up with' or 'enough is enough.' so the full line is like, "if these crimes (by the other vegapunks) are allowed to keep piling up, then you all will get fed up with me."

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hi! One of opbackground's most recent posts made me wonder. In Enel's cover story of ch 470, the description talks about the people living on the moon. I've seen this translated in many different ways and I was wondering if they use the same wording/name here in japanese as for the Lunarians?

oh, this is a really good question! so, it doesn't refer to them as lunarians directly, but it also doesn't refer to them with any other proper name. in the official, judging by the @opbackgrounds post, it looks like they've called them 'mooninites.' in japanese, it just calls them 月の人/tsuki no hito, meaning "people of the moon." which reads as a descriptive term, not necessarily a name. the full phrase translated directly would be like "winged 'people of the moon' who lived in ancient times."

the name of the lunarians is spelled out directly when they're eventually named as ルナーリア族/runaaria-zoku, with 族/zoku meaning 'tribe' or 'clan.'

while we're at it, it may be a coincidence, but i will note that marco's memory of whitebeard's story of the ancient civilization on top of the red line (in the same chapter the lunarians are named) refers to it as 神の国/kami no kuni, 'country of the gods,' which is also a term used to describe skypiea a few times throughout that arc.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

hi there i had a question about chapter 1111 i saw a lot of different translations of pages 12 to 13(?) where the gorosei are asking the giants "who do you think that guy is?" and threatening to erase them. from history. did you notice anything unusual about those lines?

yes! there’s a few things here. the most interesting to me is the line immediately preceding warcury asking if the giants understand who luffy is. he addresses them as 因縁深き者達/innenbukaki monotachi, which is like- innen is ‘fate’, and bukaki here is some version of ‘deep’. i suppose it’s like referring them as ‘you/people who are deeply connected by fate/destiny’? that’s at least how i read it. i wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it, and most translators seem to have been kind of uncertain as well, because i’ve seen several different interpretations.

and then i understand the line from saturn that follows was translated differently between the scanlations and the official. saturn says sou yobareteru uchi ni, tsubusaneba naran! sekai no rekishi kara na!

そう呼ばれてる内に/sou yobareteru uchi ni is literally "while you say so"- as in, '[while/so long as] you refer to him as 'your friend''. that's the main source of the inconsistency in translations here, because it means you could read the sentence as "so long as you align yourself with him (by calling him your friend), we'll have to crush you out of this world's history" OR as "we'll have to crush you/him out of this world's history before you call him something other than 'your friend'" (presumably nika/joy boy/whatever).

i think the official went with the second because the use of uchi lends a sense of urgency to the line- sort of like ‘we have to act on this now before the situation changes.’

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

how does mars, big bird's psycho brother, speak to Rob Lucci and York in chapter 1111? The fan-translation I read had Jinbei apologize to Lucci before attacking him, is that what he does in the raws?

yeah, jinbe does apologize to lucci in the middle of his windup, which is very funny to me- he says 悪いな/waruina, which is a rather casual/not very sincere or serious apology.

there’s nothing super remarkable about how mars speaks that jumps out at me, but he’s definitely very blunt and doesn’t bother to mince words. one gets the sense that he has absolutely no interest in niceties; he has a certain amount of information that he wants and he expects it as efficiently as possible.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

in preparation for likely chapter leaks tomorrow, some notes on how i’ve been handling new chapter releases on this blog now that i’m caught up again, because i generally read the chapter as soon as i can get legible raws!

posts that i make about the new chapter before the official release will always be tagged as #raw spoilers, as well as with the specific chapter number, so for example #ch 1111.

all early/spoiler posts will also have a chapter specific spoiler warning at the top, in case people don’t have the tags blacklisted. however, the best way to avoid seeing raw spoilers on this blog is to blacklist the tag #raw spoilers.

please don’t ask me questions about the new chapter until my pinned post and blog description have been updated to indicate i’ve read it; this hasn’t been a problem the last few weeks, but it has been in the past, so i’m just reiterating.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello! I am so confused with the cover page (chapter 1110)!

What does it mean "Ogre child Yamato's golden harvest surrogate pilgrimage"? I am very anxious to know!!

(I don't even know what is "surrogate pilgrimage" 🧐)

yes! honestly, there may be some elements of this that i'm missing because there's a lot i don't know about shintou, but i can break this bit they've translated as 'golden harvest surrogate pilgrimage' down for you.

so what we have here is 金稲荷代参/ko-inari daisan. the first kanji there, 金, is 'gold', and is attached to the second word, 稲荷/inari. inari is a major shintou god of the harvest/agriculture as well as assorted other things, and is very associated with foxes; if you ever see fox statues at a shrine entrance, those are representations of inari! so it's "golden inari", which has presumably been translated as "golden harvest" because english-speaking audiences broadly don't know who inari is.

then the last word is 代参/daisan. it's a word that refers specifically to visiting one temple on behalf of another; i guess there's probably no better way to convey that concept simply in english than 'surrogate pilgrimage.'

i would assume here that golden inari/ko-inari may refer to a specific shrine or destination of some sort that we haven't seen yet. so i guess you could translate it as something like 'oni/ogre child yamato's visit/pilgrimage to the golden inari'? that's just me guessing though. does that make more sense?

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

dorry and broggy’s attack on ju peter is translated as ‘sun saw’ in the official, which is correct and pretty straightforward- the japanese name is 太陽鋸/taiyou noko, and ‘sun saw’ is a direct translation.

however, the pronunciation also sounds like taiyou no ko, which would be ‘child of the sun.’ this line being placed right after dorry and broggy note that luffy isn’t someone suited to dark places can make it read almost like a continuation of that thought; he’s not suited to dark places because he’s a child of the sun.

this is why in the TCB scanlations they did it as ‘child of the sawing sun’- while i think it’s rather clunky and i’m glad they didn’t do that for the official it does manage to get both meanings in there.